Phantoms Part I
by AgentT
Summary: Vampires seem to know thier book lernin' when Buffy disappears after a spell is used by the fanged ones...


"We're in very grave danger." Giles intoned. 

"Obviously, we're going to have a situation." Cordelia sighed. "What should I wear?" 

Buffy looked around at her friends. The solution was clear. "Guys, you know what we have to do." 

Around her, everyone nodded. 

"Simple magic just can't ward off this evil." Willow said. 

They all just sat there, silence ruling the library. Suddenly, a voice interrupted the tranquility. 

"Someone call a plumber?" 

Giles stood up earnestly. "Yes, our drain seems to be in a bit of mishap." 

Buffy stood next to Giles. "What he means, is, the drain is broken." 

Giles looked at Buffy. "Ah, yes." He took his glasses off and wiped them with a layer of tweed. "Just in time." 

The plumber tipped his cap and smiled. "Sure. It'll be done by the hour." With that he moved into Giles's office where the little sink lay clogged. 

Xander moved closer to Buffy. "Uh, Buff? I trust you completely in your slaying skills, but what will we say when he pulls out the whatcha-ma-call-it that we slayed?" 

"Well, we could.." Buffy stopped, suddenly realizing that even the Slayer didn't know what to do in certain situations. 

Cordelia smiled. "We could say it's one of Xander's gym socks." Then she added, "Eww..." 

"Well, looks like all is well for now, so I'm gonna go a-huntin. You can figure out what to do about the nasty, Giles." Buffy picked up her black duffel bag off the scarred oak table. It was a little after sunset and the Slayer was dying to get some built up energy out. Okay, perhaps dying wasn't the appropriate word. 

She walked out of Sunnydale High accompanied by Xander, Willow, Oz, and a reluctant Cordelia. She had opted to spend time with the rest of the gang rather than research with Giles. She pulled her jacket on. She didn't think it was that cold, but the once breezy September afternoon had turned for the worse. A few hours earlier, in broad daylight, they were attacked by a slimy hellbeast that Willow was definately not happy to see. Giles said it was a Mundun, an ancient "keeper of the souls." After repeated tries with pointy objects that would otherwise kill, they resorted to the very dangerous, very loud, and very noticible rocket launcher and the Mundun exploded into a few thousand pieces. They tried their best to keep it hidden until they could flush it. Giles opted to send it down the drain, therefore creating a mess. 

"So, Buff. Buffy. Dutchess of Buffonia.....where we going?" Xander asked in his usual sarcastic way. 

Buffy moved a strand of blond hair out of her face. The wind was doing horrors for her hair. "Wherever. I was thinking the Bronze though. Fun, coffee, and sucky bands combined with a little aerobic vampire slaying all mixed into one. Whaddya say?" 

"I'm all up for the Bronze." Cordelia said. "Except for the slaying." 

Willow gave Oz a kiss. "Bronze it is." 

"Yeah, but one problem." Oz said and pointed. 

Problem was making it's way up the street, holding a large weapon. 

Buffy shifted into Slayer Mode. So did the others. Xander and Willow as well as Oz and Cordy pulled out assorted pointy killing machines, suited for vampires, not what was coming toward them with a not-so-happy look on it's face. Or what was presumed to be it's face. 

"Split up!" Buffy shouted as the beast threw itself at her. She dived to the left and hit the sidewalk, barely hitting a nearby bench. Xander and Cordy grabbed larger weapons of choice and slowly advanced. Well, Xander did. Cordy...well, Cordy was in distress. Over her shoes. 

"These cost me a lot of money!" She cried as a tree branch wielding Xander struck the monster in the head. The nasty quickly acknowledged the seemingly harmless hit and it's arm whipped out. Xander went flying and Willow and Oz moved in. While Willow attempted a binding spell, Oz had taken to a smaller offense. He grabbed the stick that Xander had dropped mid-air and tried to distract it while Willow muttered things in Latin. 

"Um, um, I really really should've practiced..." Willow was trying her best. In a flash, she saw her boyfriend flying across the street onto the sidewalk where Buffy had once been. Then it clicked. 

"Come on you hellbeast." She hoped to sound menacing, but it ended up sounding afraid and uncertain. Which was exactly what she was at that point. Quickly taking a stake and squeezing it in her hand, she backed up as the beast came toward her. 

Buffy was reluctant to attack, knowing that any movement or attack she made could hurt or kill one of her friends. She stood with Xander as he tried to make sure no bones were broken. She handed him a stake as he dropped his arm, happy that there was no more damage than bruises, both on his body and his ego. 

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Meanwhile, a few minutes later, in a library far far away, Giles was doing what he did best: reading and drinking tea. Buffy swore that one day, he'd overdose on tea and they'd find him forever dependent on a nice warm shot of Earl Grey. He was trying to find something on the demon they had just killed. Apparently, information was even more scarce as the monsters kept coming. And the dread machine was not his area of expertise. He outwardly despised computers, but not their technology. He believed that the technology was good for the future of mankind, but the way it was used now, for games and other forms of animated violence...it just wasn't right to him. 

He dropped the large volume onto the table and picked up another one. In his office, the plumber was still fiddling around with the sink. He had claimed a large area of problems needed to be solved, and Giles readily agreed to it, one because he was entirely engrossed in his books, and two because he knew nothing of this dribble the plumber was talking about. 

"Well." He said in frustration. There was nothing he could find, outside of what they had flushed. He remembered the sample they had gathered of the Mundun after it uh, dismembered. Buffy was quite handy with a rocket launcher. He laughed to himself. A few years ago, he would've never thought that his slayer would be using a rocket launcher, nor anyone else for that matter. He himself, now had a large collection of weapons that included a tranquilizer gun, although that was for Oz's werewolf stage rather than for a force of evil. 

Inside the tiny office, the plumber was at work. Beads of sweat dropped off his face as he worked to unclog the drain. "Mister." He whispred to himself. "Whatever you got in this drain sure isn't coming out nicely." He reached a gloved hand down into the narrow abyss and almost screamed when he heard the snap of his wrist as it broke. He struggled to pull his hand out. As he did, the clogged waste climbed up the drain, emerging from it's dark prison and slowly went up the plumber's arm. 

Giles heard a noise. He slammed his book shut and went to his office. The door was slightly ajar and he was sure it wasn't like that a minute ago. Then again, the doors were always so rickety, it might've been a regular occurence. 

"Hello? Are you done?" He said quietly. He snapped back as the door jerked open and the plumber came out, toolbox in hand. 

"All done." He said. 

************************************************************************ 

"Run!" Buffy shouted as she ran. Xander huffed beside her and Willow was attempting to cast her spell while being pulled by Oz to run. Oz himself was being pulled by Cordelia, who, luckily had escaped the torment of ruined shoes. Impending doom was fueling their running. Or maybe that double latte they stopped for at the Java Hut downtown earlier in the day. 

"Oh, god, oh, god...." Cordelia was crying over and over. Behind them the beast that decidedly looked like Chewbacca was lumbering after them, walking faster than they were running. 

"Either Chewy had more of that double latte, or he's got quite the fetish for energy bars." Xander quipped. He stumbled over a branch lying in the way and fell over. Buffy had just enough time to pull him up before Chewy had time to catch up and knock their heads off with a swipe of a claw. 

"Where are we going?" Oz yelled. Buffy looked back and in her eyes, Willow knew the answer. She grabbed Oz, who grabbed Cordy, and they split up. It was Buffy and Xander now, running after them. It had chosen to get the slayer instead of the others. 

Xander panted as he ran on a foot that was giving him a bit of pain. "Where....are.." He stopped for breath. "We....going...?" 

Buffy gasped for breath herself. "Angel's." It was all she could muster before she could run no further. Either they'd run themselves to death and inevitably slow down and be sitting ducks, or they could fight, try to kill it before it outran them. 

"Come on, nasty. Show me what ya got!" She had a long sharp blade in one hand while her other gripped a stake. She tossed the stake to a surprised Xander and he nodded. 

"Not so tough without Han, are you?" He said, obviously trying to make light of their situation. 

The creature roared and launched itself. Buffy stepped away and gave it a roundhouse kick that would otherwise shatter a bone. As if it felt no pain, it turned and went toward Buffy. Xander ran up to it and staked it right in the back. It roared and sent Xander off for the second time. Buffy kicked it in the furry head and took the opportunity to stab it. After repeated tries of this maneuver, with help from Xander, the beast was down. Not dead, but down. 

"I hope I never do that again." Xander said, rubbing his arm, where it had made contact with concrete. 

"Me neither, but somehow, it always seems to happen anyways. It's like they have no sympathy." She kicked the unconscious thing carefully, as if a small boot could suddenly revive it. "I think it's safe for us to kill it." 

"Safe? Oh, yeah. Safe." Xander said. 

Angel's place 

Willow and Oz, as well as a distressed Cordelia ran through the graveyard finally approaching the scene of darkness. Angel's place. The handsomely dark vampire opened the door and looked at the three. "What's going on?" He asked in his usual broodiness. "Buffy and Xander demon" Willow paused to catch her breath. "Where are they?" Angel asked. "They were behind us, we were supposed to meet here." Oz said. He looked down the street. Cordelia's cell phone rang. She grabbed it from her purse. "Hello?" "Cordy, tell the others to meet at the library." Buffy said and glanced past her into the woods where Xander and Chewbacca were situated behind a tree, where no passing bystanders could see the lumbering demon. "Orders from Sergeant Buffy. Meet at library." Cordelia said as she snapped her phone shut. They all turned around and headed out of the graveyard. Angel grabbed his trenchcoat and followed. Cordelia's phone rang again. "Leave Angel there." Buffy said again. Cordelia looked up at the vampire. "How did you-" "Just make sure he doesn't come, we're all fine." Buffy said. "It's ok, I'll stay. Call me if you need help." Angel said, already making his way back to his place. "Giles? Giles?" Buffy ran into the library and looked around. She saw Giles' cup of Earl Grey and his book lying on the table. She touched the cup. Still warm. "Maybe he's in the stacks. Sometimes you can't hear anything up there it's so deep in." Xander went up the stairs and into the stacks. He emerged with a bewildered look on his face. "No one." "Well, where is he?" She said. Xander shook his head. "Don't know." Buffy picked up the phone and dialed Giles' home number. "Machine" She said as she set it back down. "This isn't like Giles. He left his book un-marked, his tea unscathed, the chair not pushed in, the insanity!" "Really, it isn't like Giles." Buffy said, ignoring the sarcasm in Xander's voice. Willow, Oz, and Cordelia dashed in. "Where's the demon?" Willow asked. "Burned and buried." Buffy said. "But Giles is gone." "What?" Willow asked. "I'm sure he's somewhere, just looking up more information." Oz assured. "He left his tea." Xander said. "But-but-but Giles…tea…he never leaves his tea.." Willow said. "I know. Hey you think he's at like a Tea Lovers Anonymous meeting or something?" Cordelia said as all turned to look at her. "It was a thought." "Not much of one, apparently." Xander muttered. "We need to find Giles. And about the demon, what is it? We need to find that out too." Buffy said, putting a hand to her forehead. "Xander, you walk around town and try to find Giles. Take Cordelia with you. Willow, you and Oz can look up the demon. Make big on the pictures since we don't know what the name is. I'll go patrolling." She doled out jobs as everyone took theirs and went to work. "Why do I get stuck with you?" Cordelia asked, looking at Xander. "Funny, I'm asking myself the same thing." Xander said back to her. 

"Anything?" Buffy said into the pay phone. She counted the quarters in her hand. Stupid 35 cents. She remembered the days when phone calls were only 25 cents. Now she needed dimes too. Willow spoke into the phone. "Not really. We found a few descriptions, but you know these old books, heavy on the vague, less on the explaining." "Keep looking. Has Xander called?" She asked. "Nope. I assume he hasn't seen Giles." Willow said. "I'm worried." "Me too." Buffy said. "I swear we need one of those three way line cell phones or something. Walkie talkies or something like that." Willow smiled a bit. "Yeah." Oz snapped his fingers and Willow turned to her boyfriend. "Oz found something." She said into the phone. "Something good?" Buffy asked hopefully. "No, something bad, I'd say." Willow frowned. "Remember that demon we killed?? The one that we flushed?" "Yeah." Buffy said. "Guess Giles didn't read up on all of the text, cause it says here that the demon can regenerate parts. When it's separated from the…totally unpronounceable word here, but I figure it's like the brain of the demon. When it's separated from the brain it has to inhabit a living being to move around and such. It has to find it's brain and reattach before it can die. Otherwise it has to keep moving from body to body." Willow said, putting the book down on the counter. " Not to think the worst here, but three guesses to what happened to Giles." Buffy said grimly. "I'll put an APB to Xander." Willow said, and hung up. 


End file.
